Tarnished Halo
by WhatBecomesOfYou
Summary: This is Puck's favorite part, the deconstruction of the effort she puts into keeping up appearances. Quinn/Puck. Oneshot.


**Author's Note**: _I haven't written Quinn/Puck in so long, and it felt good to get back into the swing of it. Light R for mild sexual situations._

* * *

><p>Quinn brushes her hair - one hundred strokes of the brush, it's her daily regime - <em>up<em> and _down_, _up_ and _down_. She applies her makeup in the style in which she was taught once upon a time - the _flick _of the mascara brush, the _swipe_ of the lipstick tube, the _swirl_ of the blush pad, the _smudging_ of eyeshadow with her fingertips. She knows it looks good when it appears as though she's wearing nothing at all.

Her outfits are always immaculately chosen to evoke a certain ideal she'd love to live up to - that of the virginal angel. Today is a white dress day, with shades of blue; she finds a matching cardigan and is ready to go, all crisp and clean and immaculate.

She knows what's coming.

* * *

><p>They meet up after school and head back to his house; his sister would be at day care until five, and they would have a few hours to be alone. It's their little routine.<p>

This is Puck's favorite part, the deconstruction of the effort she puts into keeping up appearances. She'd described it once to him as "being a virginal angel" - the first part, they both knew was a lie; the second part, he wouldn't disagree with, but _damn_ if he didn't think they had two different ideas on what that meant.

He closes them in his room and locks the door "just in case, 'cause Sarah _so_ doesn't need our brand of sex ed." Their lips crash into each other's over and over again as the cardigan finds its way to the floor, a button loosened by his rough hands - she mentally makes a note to fix it when she gets home later.

She hitches herself up on his hips, her legs wrapped around his waist, the skirt of her dress pushed up her legs, her arms wrapped around his neck; she _swirls_ her tongue in the shell of his ear, and the muffled grunts and moans she receives as a reply is enough to spur her on. If anyone she knows could see her now, they wouldn't believe it was _really_ her - probably would check to make sure she hadn't been swapped with an evil twin or something. She laughs at the thought.

There's something about him that she can't find with anyone else. God knows she's _tried_, but every time she tries, she finds herself magnetically drawn back to him.

He nudges the bunched-up skirt higher and higher up her thighs and _swipes_ the pad of his thumb along the inside of her thigh, relishing in the feeling of her soft skin and the sound of her breathing becoming more ragged as his touches continue.

She _flicks_ a finger under the waistband of his pants, holding onto his neck tighter with her other arm - not that he'd let her fall - and grasps onto him, moving her hand _up_ and _down_, _up_ and _down_, in the style in which she had been taught once upon a time - by him, as a matter of fact. "_Shit_, Quinn," he says between gritted teeth, "you should _tell _a guy first."

She raises an eyebrow and laughs, low and melodic; "Sorry," she says, even though she really isn't, "did I make a mistake?"

"No," he says, and his jeans join her cardigan on the floor in short order, as he lets her fall backwards onto his bed, still encased in his arms. "You're doing _everything_ right," he continues, emphasizing it as she resumes her handiwork in her new position.

He musses her hair in his hands, and she's thankful for birth control as they take up their now-familiar patterns of thrusts and tension and release - it wouldn't do for Beth to get a sibling, not now, anyway, maybe one day, far in the future, when they don't have to sneak around behind locked doors.

It's only after he slides out of her that she sees something in his eyes, something indescribable, something that is much, _much_ more than pure lust.

_Only_ he could do all this to her while she's still mostly dressed.

* * *

><p>She looks in the mirror in his bathroom as she shrugs her cardigan back on, rumpled instead of smooth. Her makeup is <em>smudged<em>, her hair is messed up, and she knows if she walks out right now, everyone will know instantly what she has done.

"You look hot," he says, as he comes in and leans against the bathroom door, "you don't need to put any of that shit back on."

She snorts. "You did this to me."

"And that's what makes it hot," he says with a smirk.

She slips her hair into a ponytail and washes her face clean of any trace of makeup. She's no angel; only Puck has to know that though, everyone else can continue to believe that she's a paragon of virtue.

She just plays the role so well.

-_fini_-


End file.
